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• Recalcitrant Bavarians fight pub smoking ban 

Bavaria's anti-smoking legislation was intended as the toughest in all of Germany when it was introduced at the beginning of the year, but putting it into effect has produced paradoxical results.

Pubs across the country's largest state have sidestepped the law by reconstituting themselves as "smokers' clubs".

Munich administrative official Wilfried Blume-Beyerle has called on Environment Minister Otmar Bernhard to find a way to ban these "associations for evading the law", as he calls them.

Blume-Beyerle puts the number of smokers' clubs in the state capital at 700, of some 2,000 registered pubs.

In picturesque Nuremberg, some 220 of 700 corner pubs and beer bars have changed their status, according to city official Hartmut Frommer.

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